ridiculous rating

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

I was a kid when these showed up on KING in 1954. They aired three times a week, Mon-Wed-Fri, so in one week, we saw an entire serial. I was disappointed when one Monday, it failed to show up at its regular time. I was admittedly hooked as a ten-year old.By today's standards, RJSP can't be fairly judged. Ships that fly through an atmosphere to streak upward and land on a jet of pure rocket power? Calculating a course using nothing more than a triangle, pencil and paper? Fights in which nobody loses their hat? A magnetic grappling system to capture and seat a ship in a space station docking port? Dodging asteroids (where have we seen that before? Oh, yeah -- Galaxy Quest).Yeah, there's a lot that is wrong with the series.But there's a lot that is right. One of the things are the wonderful alien planet paintings that serve as backdrops to alien landscapes. The idea that a flying saucer uses some kind of magnetic drive (I remember that from when it aired -- I think it is in the final series "Trial of Rocky Jones" -- Add: It wasn't. According to another post, the series was called "Blast Off" and served as the final episode to the first season -- the show was canceled in the second season for a number of reasons -- see the discussion thread for more information). Truly good versus truly bad. Espionage. Kid mistakes.This is seat-of-your-pants entertainment that looked real enough to be believable, back then. The stories are campy, but so are some of the scenes in George Pal's War of the Worlds and Forbidden Planet. They are aimed for the kids, and for a kids show, the FX were very futuristic for the time. Watch some of the other syndicated shows of the time -- many are available on Netflix or via streaming video on the internet.Television in the 1950s was very puritan. To have Rocky show a love interest toward Vena wasn't going to happen, not in 1954 when you seldom saw inside a married couples' bedroom and when you did, they each had their own bed. So a lot of the criticism toward this series is based upon today's television standards (Think Ozzie & Harriet, I Love Lucy, and other shows with married couples).7 stars is being generous, but I believe a fair assessment for the show at the time it was aired. By today's standards, it would be much, much lower. But for the TV buff who is interested in vintage television, you really can't get much better. It is too bad that most of the episodes available on DVD are from video tape. It would be really nice for someone to dig up any of the vintage copies and do a job to restore the entire series to pristine shape.

I used to love Rocky Jones as a lad, it debuted in 1954 when I was a mere 7 years old. Rocky was a chiseled hero of the space age, a space ranger working for the United Worlds. The United Nations was in its first decade and the world hoped it would help bring lasting peace to the planet. Those hopes were certainly transported into the future with the United Worlds. Note the similarity between the crowd Rocky and his crew worked for and the United Federation of Planets that employed the Enterprise a dozen years later.I also don't think it was an accident that actor Charles Meredith played the future Secretary-General of the United Worlds. His resemblance to the current president named Eisenhower residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, could not be missed.Rocky's crew consisted of co-pilot Winky, navigator Vena, scientist Professor Newton and a young kid named Bobby who Professor Newton took quite an interest in. Vena was always in short skirts and heels, not exactly regulation for space travel, but I guess she was there for the Dads. What Bobby was on those missions for still eludes me except as a boy toy. To hear Winky tell it he had a girl on every planet, but Rocky showed no discernible interest in the opposite sex.Of course special effects were pretty chintzy, but given that television was still in its own adolescence, understandable. The show was not terribly good in predicting scientific advancement. No computers or lasers are seen in this futuristic program. I recall one episode in which an abandoned moon was blasted with something called a tortanic missile to alter its orbit. Didn't work.But one thing I will always remember Rocky Jones for. There was a ruler Queen on one of the planets named Officius and her name was Cleolanta. That woman was pure evil and deliciously played by an actress named Patsy Parsons. Cleolanta used to give this seven year old nightmares. But I still watched the show.

Don't listen to the negative reviews. Rocky Jones Space Ranger is a great series. As basic juvenile oriented entertainment, it is terrific fun. There are spaceships, travels to different planets, weird science, and girls in mini-skirts. As a Science Fiction television show, it is pioneering, and arguably one of the most enduring.There seems to always be a rift between those who want their sci-fi to be "smart" and those who are looking for action and/or special FX. This series was made before the genre was divided. It's an early 50's sci-fi adventure t.v. show aimed primarily at juveniles--take it for what it is. Despite it's "limitations" it sure seems to have a lot of elements that would later be used by Gene Roddenberry on Star Trek.Rocky Jones Space Ranger portrays a future where interplanetary travel is routine. The show employs an ensemble cast with a family-like camaraderie. Rocky and his crew (Vena, Bobby, Biff, and Professor Newton) are sent out as emissaries of the United Worlds. The UW is portrayed as a peaceful alliance of planets, yet outside threats from rogue elements & planets require a force of Space Rangers. Diplomacy is always the first resort, but Rocky is definitely able to go fist-city with any bad-guy. Also of note is the fact that this series routinely cast women in important roles as both rulers, villains, and sidekicks--fairly unusual for 1954.Rocky Jones is a truly enjoyable sci-fi adventure t.v. shows for those young at heart. It's well written, filmed (as opposed to shot on video) and the special effects are actually pretty good for something produced in 1954. If you're not a sci-fi snob, you'll definitely enjoy this great, pioneering show.

Rocky Jones is an emotionless space ranger who is never wrong. Everyone he knows follows his every whim, even his superiors in the Space Ranger chain. He's smarter than everybody and knows everything about everything. Nothing fazes him, nothing is beyond his control. He looks like Kirk but acts like Spock, only not as excitable. He's about as fun to watch as a dead hamster. On the opposite end of the spectrum are all the other characters, who are so inept and annoying that you wonder why Rocky even bothers with them. There's tow-headed, chipmunk-toothed Bobby, a know-it-all kid who sucks up to everyone and comes along on all the missions for no discernable reason. Also along for no reason is Vena, who is someone's sister. Vena wears a lot of short skirts, which is nice, but she's also dumber than a stick, which is not. And don't forget senile old Professor Newton, who is one of those movie scientists who doesn't specialize in any specific realm of science or medicine, but is called upon for everything from astrophysics to childcare. Worst of all is Rocky's effeminate sidekick Winky (yes, Winky), who constantly yammers on about his swingin' social life with the ladies. He claims to be girl crazy and quite the player, but spends 24 hours a day with chiseled and asexual Rocky, chirpy man-boy Bobby, and platonic gal-pal Vena. All the male characters wear really tight pants.Their adventures seem to be aimed at kids, but they're shot so drably and acted so woodenly that it's the visual equivalent of Nyquil. The mind-numbingly-simple plots are over-explained to the point where you can't tell what's going on. People get captured and recaptured by their nemesis over and over again until you can't tell who's a captor, who's a captive, and who's just pretending to be a captive. The "futuristic" sets show all the ingenuity and imagination as a Sears catalog. The scripts are written by people who cannot grasp simple human interaction, let alone the science of space flight. They're technically inept, which should be funny on some level, but they're also boring and made by people who just didn't put any heart into their work, so I guess television hasn't changed much since 1954.